2 Nephi 16:10

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Reference Search: 2 Nephi 16:10

10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes—lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and be healed.

Quote for discussion

Heart Fat, Ears Heavy, Shut Eyes

In Hebrew literature the ear was the organ of understanding, the eye was the organ of perception, and the heart was the organ of thought….Isaiah is told to tell the people that they have the physical capacity to understand and perceive God’s message, but that they do not. If they have the ability to comprehend the message and they do not, it must mean that the people chose not to comprehend.

Isaiah is further told, according to the King James Version, to make the people’s organs of thought dull, to cause their organs of understanding to be clumsy, and to close their organs of perception, so that the people would not use them and be cured by the divine message….

How can a loving god commission His prophet to prevent the people from being cleansed from their uncleanness by causing their organs of comprehension to be ineffective?...

The best solution to this theological difficulty derives from a knowledge of the Hebrew grammatical forms used in this passage. The King James Version rests on the usual reading of the Hebrew hiph’iI form of the three verbs involved. Normally the hiph’iI conjugation has a causative meaning, and thus the translation “make the heart…fat.” However, one of the modes of the hiph’iI connotes a declarative, and would yield the translation “declare the heart of this people to be fat.” Thus, the New English Bible for this passage reads, “This people’s wits are dulled, their ears are deafened and their eyes blinded, so that they cannot see with their eyes nor listen with their ears nor understand with their wits, so that they may turn and be healed.” This rendering would eliminate the theological difficulties imposed on the passage by reading a causative, because it would no longer be God through his prophet who makes the people incapable of realizing their moral turpitude. Isaiah becomes rather God’s appointed accuser of the people.

Paul Y. Hoskisson, The Old Testament and the Latter-day Saints: Sperry Symposium 1986 [Randall Book Co., 1986], 199-200